


The Ironic Loop of Birth and Death

by dancerinthedrink



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Babysitting, Domestic, M/M, Melancholy, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 17:20:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19233664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancerinthedrink/pseuds/dancerinthedrink
Summary: Richard and Francis get saddled with babysitting duties during the funeral.





	The Ironic Loop of Birth and Death

I was milling about the Corcoran house in a sort of Bud Lite haze with a tall glass of water sweating condensation down my fist. It was a defense mechanism I developed over the years of dull backyard barbeques and headache-inducing house parties, saying I had to deliver said glass of water to someone to get out of a burgeoning conversation. For the Corcoran encounters, I said it was for Henry, for the ones with a stranger I merely said “someone” without specification and they were fine to break from me and awkwardly admire the family photos on the wall: Bunny, full of life and grinning. 

The whole house seemed to be in a state of hushed anticipation, weird considering the proverbial “hard part” was over. The casket buried, prayers intoned, yet silence still coursed through the house, broken by Mr. Corcoran’s periodic bursts of laughter and sobs that made my chest hurt. 

My mouth was tacky and gross from the beer and while taking an experimental sip of the water I heard my name hysterically hissed, a clear attempt to smother the anxiety that was threatening to spill forth in a shriek.

I turned to see Francis threading around the mourners like a raven amongst crows, his red hair streaming behind him and I thought absently that it had grown rather long since the first time we’d met. He had the Corcoran baby in his arms, dressed, also, in black.

“Richard, you’ve got to help me,” he said, hiking the baby higher on his shoulder, his face knit with terror. “I was talking with Hugh and all of sudden he pushed this-” he cocked his head at the baby derisively- “on me and took off. I don’t know what to do. I can’t seem to find a single Corcoran in this place. I thought I saw Brady but when we made eye contact he disappeared into the crowd.”

“What do you expect me to do?” The baby, called Champ I recalled, seemed shaken, trembling in Francis’s arms and on the sniffling verge of tears. Noticing the baby’s change in demeanor, Francis began to bounce on the balls of his feet, humming a tuneless song that might have been ‘Alouette’ in such a way I almost laughed. 

“Help me?” he said desperately. “C’mon, you must know _some_ thing.”

I didn’t, not really. My cousin once brought her new daughter around when I was fifteen and my mother had been ecstatic, cuddling and dancing around the house with her in her arms, and I had been struck with such a strong, strange deep-seeded nostalgia that I had to excuse myself and smoke the remnants of that morning’s pot at the bottom of my bedroom closet to calm down.

“Just put him down somewhere. Someone’s bound to pick him up eventually if you do.”

“I can’t put him on the floor. What if somebody steps on him?”

I rolled my eyes. “Francis, no one’s going to step on a baby.”

“You don’t know that. He’s so small,” Francis whispered, as if the baby would be offended if he heard, though, being a Corcoran, he might’ve. “Look, I’m just asking you to keep me company until we get someone to take him off our hands.” To cajole me into his miserable plot, he shifted the baby so its red, tearstained face was pointed directly at me, chubby legs dangling below Francis’s arm. 

“Well support him for Chrissake,” I said, nearly panicked, and scooped up the little legs in one hand until Francis was able to maneuver himself and baby comfortably.

He nestled the thing close to his heart and stuck out his lower lip in an ersatz pout and swiveled it back and forth. “You wouldn’t say no to this face, would you?” Then, as if on cue, the baby began to wail and Francis’s expression crumpled into one of horror. We cast nervous glances around the room, had any eyes fallen on us, they must have turned away in second-hand embarrassment. 

Again, he began his springy dance, murmuring absurd pet names into the thing’s ear with such ferocity, I thought he was making the whole situation worse. The baby squirmed against him, its arms flapping in an ignored plea for release. It ( _he_ , I forced myself to think) looked at me beseechingly to make it all stop.

Enfolded in his shell-shaped fist was the Happy Meal airplane, a dinky piece of plastic painted blue and white and green. I pried it from his hand, not an easy task, and, making a right fool of myself, pressed my lips together and imitated the sound of a jet engine.

“Brrrrrrr,” I purred as it zoomed past his nose. Like magic, Champ snapped to attention, watching the plane looping through the air with rounded, transfixed eyes, dewy with tears and already starting to show the telltale squint of near-sightedness.

“Brr,” he mimicked, awed. 

Francis was awed too. “How’d you do that?” He demanded, shifting Champ higher and at a better vantage point to wave at the plane, trying to catch it in his little fingers. Not daring to stop my plane impression, I shrugged and rolled the puny wheels over the baby’s head, which he laughed at and applauded. 

“No, seriously. Do you have a younger brother or sister you’ve never told us about?” Both of them were transfixed by my hand and their heads stopped in unison when I paused. Francis, completely baffled, tore himself away to meet my eyes which were narrowed in agitation. When he realized I wouldn’t be giving him an answer he sighed and let his attention drop to Champ, and, despite prior assessments, he seemed to be a very attentive babysitter, eager to please the infant. 

Though, no matter how many times he calls the baby ‘darling’ or sweetheart’, it didn’t do anything to change my opinion that Francis would make a terrible father. None of us would be particularly good but Francis might be the worst possible candidate, I thought fondly. 

I had my doubts my friends would ever consider parenthood, Henry especially would see procreation as a useless endeavor that breeds resentment over affection - “Think of Orestes. Nothing good comes of the competition between mother and father, chiefly when their faults combine to form a child,” he’d said after Bunny had teased, at that point lovingly, Camilla for having childbearing hips - though he could expose them to a heavier degree of culture at an earlier age than his parents had for him, whilst the twins would be attentive and devoted with their homespun Southern charm: Camilla bundling up the kids for building snowmen and preparing mugs of Ovaltine on the stovetop while Charles raced around the yard with a pair of short legs around his neck. 

Even Bunny, Mack as his example, would have raised his sons the old WASP way, slaps on the back, football training camps, a drink with dad once he was of age, a small army of blue-eyed, blond-haired, gap-toothed Bunnys set upon Connecticut at the peril of anyone who tried contradiction. 

Marion as their lone feminine energy. She was filed away in a corner, a Lisa in matching obsidian earrings cuddling her, pulling tissues from her pocket that could be considered blinding with how white they were.

But Francis would be very much like his mother and himself. Lazy and obstinate, doling out gifts and cash prizes for passing grades. He’d probably donate a new wing to a library for his kids to graduate whatever college would allow them in. At least they would all be impeccably dressed while they failed.

He clicked his tongue at me. A pair of seats - green velvet cushions, burnished bolts shaped like Dots, antiques dredged up from the basement - along the wall were empty and we descended on them before they could be reclaimed by whatever aunties had been sitting there prior. Francis had turned Champ back around now he was more docile, and for simpler transportation, and when he rotated him again (the babe was bound to get seasick at this point) he bit back a squeal.

“Now now my dear. You don’t want to hurt your Uncle Francis do you?” Tangled around Champ’s hand was a lock of scarlet hair, threads of red pulled tight around his knuckles, translucent skin turning lilac without circulation. “That’s it. Let’s look at Uncle Richard why don’t we. Let go of my hair. That’s it. Good boy,” he said as he unhooked his curl off of the baby and slid him down on his lap. Sinking my teeth into my bottom lip, I literally bit back a smile as I tried to keep up with entertaining the baby. 

Somewhere, maybe on the porch or in the backyard, a stereo was playing and Dusty Springfield simpered over the son of a preacher man, dulcet voice weaving through the raindrops, doubtlessly a CD Bram Guernsey brought with him to get high to, but the song was so gentle, so romantic, no one really minded and its mellowing purpose couldn’t corrupt the dove-like rhythms. Even Champ swayed back and forth, a sprig of drool hanging off his chin swung in a pendulous motion. 

“Let me hold him,” I said. Francis, incredulous, passed him to me after I had put my glass, coasterless, on an expensive looking oak end table, taking over airplane duties clumsily. When Champ seemed less than pleased with his attempts, he quit and moved to stroking his velvety cheek. He prodded Champ with a long finger which the baby snatched away in his fist.

“He’s strong,” Francis observed.

I nodded. “Heavy too.” The baby was a pleasant weight in my lap, like _The Complete Works of William Shakespeare_ , and reminded me of a stuffed puppy I had as a child, a toy I would cuddle with every night until I turned eight and, even then, still dig through the mess of my closet to squeeze after a particularly difficult argument with my father. 

For a while we just sat there. Francis returned the plane to Champ’s possession and we watched as he fiddled with it, letting out happy baby gurgles as he flicked his wrist in a parody of flight. A good amount of times we had to prevent him from sticking it in his mouth and chewing with what little stubs of teeth he had.

It felt like a very short when Hugh finally came up to us, the miasma of Scotch billowing from his mouth like cigarette smoke, a tired, red-rimmed look to his eyes. He stood, silent, for several seconds before leaning over and lifting Champ from my arms. “Thanks, guys. For watching out for him.” He hefted him higher on his hip. “I just… thanks.”

“It was no problem,” Francis said. Hugh swallowed hard and kissed Champ on the temple.

“Do you think he looks a little like Bunny when he was this age?” 

Francis and I exchanged looks of confusion. Bunny had shown us both innumerable baby pictures of him and his brothers but to me everyone looked the same at that age and I could tell by Francis’s searching gaze he thought so as well.

“It’s just that Mom says he does. I really don’t think so but… “ He sighed. “Say ‘bye-bye’ Honey,” he said, easily shifting from bereaved brother to sprightly dad. Champ raised his arm. 

“Buh-buh,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Literally just wanted to write something with a baby. Rock on Champ. Maybe major in, like, Computer Science or...just like something less deadly.


End file.
